Background and career
Richard Craig Shelby (born May 6, 1934) is an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Alabama from 1987 to 2023. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986 as a Democrat, Shelby switched to the Republican Party in 1994. Shelby is the longest-serving U.S. senator from Alabama, holding office for exactly 36 years. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Shelby is a 1957 graduate of the University of Alabama. He was admitted to the Alabama bar in 1961 and earned an LL.B. from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1963. Shelby served as a Tuscaloosa city prosecutor from 1963 to 1971. He also worked as a U.S. magistrate for the Northern District of Alabama and as a special assistant Attorney General of Alabama. Shelby served in the Alabama State Senate from 1970 to 1978, when he was elected from the 7th district to the United States House of Representatives. He served in the House until 1987; during his House tenure, he was among a group of conservative Democrats known as the boll weevils. In 1986, Shelby was elected to the U.S. Senate in a tight race. In 1994, the day after the Republican Revolution in which the GOP gained the majority in Congress midway through President Bill Clinton's first term, Shelby switched parties and became a Republican. He was reelected by a large margin in 1998, facing no significant electoral opposition thereafter. Apart from his narrow win as a Democrat in 1986, Shelby always won his Senate seat with more than 60% of the vote. Shelby chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee from 2018 to 2021, and he also chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Senate Banking Committee, and the Senate Rules Committee. In February 2021, Shelby announced that he would not seek reelection in 2022. Katie Britt, his former chief of staff, was elected to succeed him.
Shelby was born in Birmingham, Alabama on May 6, 1934. He is the son of Alice L. (née Skinner) and Ozie Houston Shelby and is a fifth-generation Alabamian. Shelby received a bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama in 1957, was admitted to the Alabama State Bar in 1961, and received an LL.B. from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1963.
Shelby was a city prosecutor in Tuscaloosa, Alabama from 1963 to 1971. He also worked as a U.S. Magistrate for the Northern District of Alabama and as a special assistant state attorney general. Shelby was elected to the Alabama Senate in 1970 and served until 1978, when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He was reelected to Congress three times, serving until 1987. Shelby was one of the more conservative Democrats in Congress, and a member of the boll weevils, a group of moderate to conservative-leaning Democrats who often worked with President Ronald Reagan on defense issues.
In the 1986 U.S. Senate election in Alabama, Shelby won the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat held by Republican Jeremiah Denton, the first Republican elected to the Senate from Alabama since Reconstruction. He won a very close race as the Democrats regained control of the Senate.
Shelby was easily reelected even as Bill Clinton lost Alabama's electoral votes.
On November 9, 1994, one day after the Republican Revolution in which Republicans won control of both houses in the midterm elections, Shelby switched his party affiliation to Republican. Shelby's party switch gave the Republicans a 53–47 majority in the Senate. He won his first election as a Republican in 1998 by a large margin.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
